Picking-up appliance for balls.



Patented Apr. 22, I902.

' E. E. ROBERTS.

PICKING UP APPLIANCE FOB BALLS. (Applichtion filed Jan. 14, 1902.)

(No Model.)

A I P in D E n F E y We as as I hv LEI Y XWWWMQI' I k dmwe m UNITED STAT S PATENT OFFICE.

. EDWARD EMRYS ROBERTS, OF CLAUGHTON, NEAR BIRKENHEAD, I ENGLAND.

I PICKING-UP AP'PLIAYANCE FO-R BALLS.

srncrrroarroiv forming part of Letters Patent No. 698,226, dated April as, 1902. a

Application 519a January 14, 1902. Serlal No. 89,649. (Ilo model.)

Q To all whom it may concer n:

Be it known that I, EDWARD EMRYS Ron- ERTS, student of medicine, a subject of the King of Great Britain, residing in 'Claughton, near Birkenhead, in the county of Chester, England, (whose full postal address is 7 Slatey road, Olaughtom) have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Devices for Picking Up Balls, (for which application for patent has beennnade in England,-

provisional protection, No. 25,301, dated December 11, 1901,) of which the following is a specification. A

v This invention has for its object a simple form of caddie or picker-up for table-tennis by which the balls can be at once seized and a considerable number captured at once without the device having to be emptied.

The accompanying drawing is a perspective.

view of the device.

It consists, essentially, informing a basket or bowl A, fixed to the end of a rod or handle Bin a sloping position and having a bottom and also sides formed with elastic strips,

as a single shaft.

in any convenient manner.

ners D and their adjacent elastic threads and also the spaces F are a little less than the diameter'of the balls, so that the threads 0 must stretch a little when the ball is being squeezed through; but as the threads at the sides of'the spaces F are .both elastic saidspaces F are 'made a little less in width than spaces E.

The mode of action is as follows: A ball having fallen onto the ground, the operator presses the basket or bowl A down onto it, or if it happens to be against a wall presses the side of the bowl laterally against it. The ball slips through between the elastic strips, threads, tapes, or the like 0 into the bowl or basket and lies inside it. Without lifting the bowl to empty it'the operator can immediately press his caddie down on another ball,

and so on until he has obtained all the balls and then quietly empty them out on the table-at pleasure. A spring would probably do for the threads 0, &c.-'in fact, any material which has a slight amount of give when the balls are slipped through between.

It will be noted that the characteristic features of my invention are the frame or skeleton of the basket or receptacle open at sides and bottom and the laterally-yieldin g strained connectors O, of whatever material they be made, spaced and extending substantially parallel with each other across the openings of the frame, producing flat grid-like sides and bottom. l

I declare that what I claim is- 1. A device for the purpose specified, com

prising a skeleton receptacle having a fiat bottom formed of spaced and substantially parallel connectors of flexible material, extending across from side to side and strained,

substantially as set forth.

2. A device for the purpose specified, comprising a receptacle having a skeleton frame with open sides and bottom, and connectors of flexible material strained across said sides and bottom in straight lines, the contiguous connectors being parallelwith each other,

substantially as set forth.

3. In an appliance for picking up balls, the;

combination of a pair of open frames of any suitable shape, placed one above the other at a'suitable distance apart, corner-pieces adapted t fasten said frames together at a suitable" distance apart, and made so as 'to concave outward, and elastic or flexible strips or cords at sides and bottom of said frame forming a grid-like structure between which the balls can be slipped through, substantially as described. I

In witness whereof I have hereunto signed my name, this 4th day of January, 1902, in the presenceof two subscribing witnesses.

E.- EMRYS ROBERTS.

-.Witnes ses:

G. (-3. DYMQND,

JOHN A.-MII 1)LET0N. 

